>> To answer your initial question, consider the case of "$ openssl md5 >> *.txt", where each line needs to have that information. The new format >> makes the output consistent regardless of manner of implementation, >> which from a future-proofing standpoint makes more sense than changing >> the output depending on the precise manner of input. > > Are you seriously suggesting that parsing the md5sums of multiple > files from the output of "openssl md5 *.txt" is a sensible use case? > Why on earth would you not call "openssl md5" for each individual > file?
Because a lot of distributions that have a lot of files include a manifest file containing the format "filename\thash" and verifying them against each other should be pretty standard. > Are you suggesting that "openssl md5" is not worthwhile using because > well-known alternatives exist that actually don't clutter the output > with garbage? I am suggesting that it isn't worthwhile because the well-known alternatives are something of a de-facto standard, not because openssl's version does it "wrong". >> Regardless, this is a simple change, anda simple awk or sed script >> will solve the problem while retaining compatibility with older >> versions. Perhaps: >> >> openssl md5 < blah | sed "s/^.*= *//" >> >> will serve. (This says, "if the line starts with an arbitrary number >> of characters, followed by an equals sign, followed by zero or more >> whitespace, remove that.") > > I shouldn't have to do this to begin with. Also, if the current > compatibility breakage trend continues, I'm sure that won't work in a > year or two. The only further change I, as an independent user, would expect from here would be to see the = disappear and possibly the space to be replaced with a tab. If "openssl md5" were intended for scripting use (and clearly it is NOT intended for such) I wouldn't be surprised if a further change were made later to make its output conform to md5sum, for compatibility with those other tools rather than for compatibility with existing scripts. (Because, as I said, it's fairly evident that it isn't intended to be scripted against. The openssl command line suite is clearly intended to be used primarily interactively.) /s/ Adam ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org Development Mailing List openssl-dev@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
